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A mirthless laugh interrupted me. She pulled back and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “You would listen to an arrogant nineteen-year-old instead of your own wife?” Thinly veiled anger tinged her voice.
I bit my bottom lip and exhaled through my nose. “He may be young, yes, but if you would just listen to him”—she clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes—“you would find he has some very interesting thoughts about the kaligorven that are worth considering.”
Her lips parted as if to speak, but the sound stuck in her throat. Her eyes widened with mock levity. “I don’t believe this. He’s fooled you, too, like he fooled my mother.”
My wife was no longer the only one struggling to contain her emotion. A growl rumbled somewhere inside my chest, and I turned my back to her.
Why can’t she trust me to provide for her?I thought, but her voice, typically a sweet sound in my ears, assaulted them like the tip of a spear.
“They mean us harm, Téron. They want to break us over and over again until we are emptied of ourselves.”
I wheeled around. “And what makes you think the solas will be any better? What makes you think that once they have grown in number, they will not do the exact same thing to us that the kaligorven have done?”
Her shoulders dropped lower, and she untangled her arms from around her body. They fell limp at her sides, her hands hidden by folds of golden linen. “Faith, Téron,” she replied.
It hit me like a blow to the stomach. She walked across the room and picked up a book from the mantlepiece. My eyes trailed her, distracted by her loveliness even though my heart quaked within me. She flipped through the pages reverently, and her voice fell like an early rain. “I wish you could believe me when I tell you there are good intentions toward us in the midst of this darkness.” She sighed, and I cringed. I knew what would come next. “I wish you could know the Highest as I do.”
I erased the separation between us and grabbed the book from her hands, tossing it onto the table behind me. She looked up, alarm written across her face.
“It is time you set aside these old superstitions, Ellehra. It is time you start paying attention to the real world”—I motioned to the cozy room in which we stood—“and let Elyon exist exactly where he has always been: far removed from us.”
Her white face grew whiter still, and a tremble shivered across her lips. “You think I’ve chosen him over my family?”
“That is not what I said.” I sighed, rubbing a palm roughly over my forehead. “I cannot believe you could actually think you are the only one in Utsanek to hold the answer to this riddle of darkness.” When my hand dropped, she stared at me with hurt mounting behind her eyes.
“Do you think I’d actually risk it all—your reputation, our daughter’s safety—because of a silly delusion, a child’s fable?”
A horn blared outside, only a few blocks away from our home, and Ellehra started at the unnatural sound.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, her fingers finding my skin.
For a moment, I considered giving in to her plea. I considered loving my wife as I would myself. I considered laying down my pride for her sake. But the weight of the expectations of the Vale came crashing down on me when the horn sounded again. A primal need to purchase protection for her in the only way I knew how consumed me. I tore my arm from her grip and made a motion to grab my spear.
Ellehra groaned in exasperation, the sound setting my teeth on edge.
“Mada?” The trembling voice came from around the corner, halting me in my tracks. A bedraggled bundle of blankets and wispy hair stood in the passage to the front room, staring at me with eyes almost too wide for that little face.
When I risked a glance at Ellehra, her expression communicated both frustration and sadness.Look what we’ve done.
Ellehra sighed heavily and met our daughter on her level. “I’m sorry, little flower. Did we wake you?”
Amyrah’s curls bounced as she shook her head. “I didn’t yike da youd sound.” She followed obediently as her mada took her hand and led her to a kitchen chair.
I watched as Ellehra poured her a glass of water and set a spiced tea biscuit in front of her on a clay plate. She bent over and whispered something in Amyrah’s ear, and soft giggles followed.
Seeing my two girls like this made me want to stay. How could I possibly worry about the ténesomni while surrounded by so much light?
Slowly, as if afraid to frighten away the tender moment, I approached the two of them. Amyrah beamed up at me, a crumbly bit of biscuit stuck to her apple cheeks.
“Pada, wanna have a bite?” She held it as high as she could, and for a moment, all my shadowy fears vacated my mind. A smile claimed my lips, and I proceeded to nibble on her chunk of biscuit—and the fingers surrounding it—until she shrieked with delight.
In the middle of that purest moment of happiness, I hardly felt Ellehra’s gentle hand between my shoulder blades. I hardly heard her whispered words.
“If you will not put a stop to this evil, I will.”
When I straightened and turned around to question her, our back door swayed ominously in the obsidian night.
Amyrah weighed no more than a bundle of farrow in my arms as I set her down on the wooden landing.
